Illumination at Christmas Dinner: December 12, 2005

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The Gifts of Ecstasy and Illumination: A Mystic’s Journal, December 12, 2005



Monday, December 12

We had an early Christmas dinner with Larry last Saturday night, in town. During dessert, for whatever reason, I started to fall into an ecstasy. I went outside, in the cold air and walked a bit, looking inwards in an attempt to avoid it. It is unusual that I can prevent myself from falling into ecstasy, perhaps something in me is changing. I also notice that now I can hear and sometimes even speak while in them. Perhaps they are starting to integrate with my normal consciousness ... Coming back to my seat at the table Larry said: “You look as though you are going to fall asleep”, and I answered: “No, I am trying not to fall into an ecstasy.” M. said “She is. I know the signs.” M. groaned and said that when I fall into ecstasy she just leaves me for an hour or so and then comes back. Then began a fairly lengthy discussion which I will summarize here.

I looked up from where I was sitting, to the lights strung in the windows and said that if all the Christmas lights in the entire world were strung together, it could not equal the Light given to us in ecstasy; it is a Light of such Brilliance and intensity, and also of a nature and quality of luminosity not found on earth. The joy felt during ecstasy - cannot be described. Even as I write these words I find myself falling into ecstasy.

Inwardly, one feels inexpressible bliss and joy, and more alive and aware than one has ever felt. Truly Alive. True Being. And one is filled with and surrounded by a radiant Light not found on earth.

I describe the experience more fully in my Journal entry on Chapter Seven of St. Bonaventure’s A Mind’s Journey to God.

Ecstasy has always come at the strangest times, and most often, not while meditating. My first experience was over twenty years ago, at Hals Deli, while holding a bagel. Later, eating a coffee ice cream cone with friends; watching figure skating on TV; reading a book. Once walking into the kitchen. More often than not, it happens in the presence of others and then it is difficult not to be embarrassed, for if people speak to me as it begins - I cannot answer. Nor move. And then - I am gone, fully gone to this earthly world ... Until it ends, as mysteriously as it began.

Reflecting on M. and Larry’s discussion at dinner: perhaps the reason we look so lifeless during ecstasy, is to show that we are dead to the world at those times. Our will and imagination (imaging abilities) are suspended. The mind now is only a pure, Divine Light, and we know ourselves only to be this Divinity. The world is not perceived, in my experience, except at times intermittently and at a great distance - although some saints have been able to speak while in ecstasy.

Saint Teresa of Avila wrote that at a certain stage of our development, ecstasies will stop. I will miss them, if I progress to that stage. Even now they are lessening in frequency and intensity, the exterior senses are no longer completely suspended. Saint Teresa also says that when the ecstasies stop, a deeper, and more valuable Peace begins in us. Ecstasies can begin late in the Illuminative or second stage of St. Teresa of Avila’s schema of the interior life, and then continue into the third and last stage of Mystical Union. She says they will stop at some point after the transforming union, in the third stage of the interior life; then the Divine union becomes continual.

In the ecstacy of Mystical Union, or the seventh mansion of St. Teresa of Avila, one feels inexpressible bliss and joy - and more alive and aware than one has ever felt. Truly Alive. True Being.

For this to happen, first we must reach the final, transforming union of the third stage of the interior life. This transforming union is our spiritual marriage to God. Often in this experience Christ approaches us with a vision of the Blessed Trinity in the very innermost part of the soul; in this vision we are often given rings set with precious stones, to symbolize this mystical marriage. It is after this transforming union that ecstasies begin to cease and the intellectual powers are not fully suspended while within them. This is when Divine union becomes continual.

Still, no matter which stage of the interior life we are in, or what level of contemplation, in St. Bonaventure’s terminology - our main task is to keep both our interior and exterior eyes steadfastedly on the Divine, so that God can work through us. The soul is perfected during ecstasy, but as human beings we can never reach full perfection. Christ Himself tells us that the most perfect beings on earth cannot compare to the least in Heaven. In my mind, our human “perfection” while still on earth is the degree of transparency we achieve as a vehicle for the Divine to work through us. It is said that the angels never forget their Divine Source. And as the angels, we humans must strive to become as transparent as glass, so that the Light of God shines through us and radiates from us to all beings. And this can only be achieved, at least in my case, by pure intention, and love for and loyalty to God. I, like St. Therese of Lisieux, could never hope to achieve perfection through my own merits, nor the perfection of the great saints in any way at all. But I can offer my intention, love and loyalty. And I will leave the rest up to God Himself.

I am mentioning this topic of the transforming union here, because in our readings of Saint Bonaventure we are approaching this stage in A Mind’s Journey to God, in chapter seven.